The Best Content Marketing Workflow For Small & Medium Businesses

Every conversation with SMB owners on content marketing ends with an eerie silence. Most of the SMB owners think that content marketing is a tough task to execute, and it is only marketers who can pull off such feats. I beg to differ at this point and want to reiterate to SMB owners that you need not be a marketer to run your content marketing program.

SMB owners need to have a solid understanding of their customers and a concrete content marketing plan to succeed with this. An effective content marketing workflow can help these entrepreneurs to run their programs with confidence and reap the right results. As the goals of content marketing programs are typically brand building, community building, and lead generation, entrepreneurs need to get the workflow set from the beginning.

This content marketing workflow will work for any small and medium business, irrespective of their focus area, size, or the life of the venture. I have divided this workflow into 3 phases – Pre-Work, The Work, and Post – Work stages. These stages help the entrepreneurs to get a better understanding of how to approach content marketing and also realize that it is a do-able task for them.

Pre-Work

The pre-work stage will help you understand the basics of your content marketing program. This stage will answer questions like:

• Who will benefit from my content?
• How can they benefit from my content?
• How will they find my content?
• How can I make my content interesting for them?
• What is my competition doing from a content marketing standpoint?

Buyer Persona Exercise

The first step in the pre-work stage is your Buyer Persona Exercise. Ok, before you hit the panic button, let me explain what buyer personas are. Buyer personas are fictional representations of your ideal customer. These can be prepared using various templates available on the internet or tool like Make My Persona. So buyer personas help you understand the target audience in-depth – their demographics, goals, challenges, watering holes, preferred content type, and more.

Why is this important? Your buyer personas will help you understand

• The kind of content your target audience prefer
• The destinations they go to consume their information needs
• Their preferred mode of communication
• Their preferred tone of communication

Keyword Research

The second step in the pre-work stage is probably one of the most crucial steps in your content marketing efforts. Keyword Research helps you understand the right keywords your target audience is using for finding the information they are looking for and the products and services they need. For your content marketing to work, you need to get a grasp on the right keywords so that they can be a part of your content.

How do you accomplish this? You can rely on a traditional google search and find them manually, or you can use a tool like Ubersuggest for the same. This tool can help you get the search volume for the keywords you try, and it provides ideas for keywords and content as well. So you can start with a general keyword that your target audience might use or one that represents your business area or product.

For example, if you run a dance studio in Manhattan, you can search for the same in Ubersuggest. Here it is showing the search volume, difficulty to rank organically and via paid ads and also the paid ad cost per click.

Here is the next feature which you should not miss – keyword ideas. These are the keyword suggestions by Ubersuggest that you can add to your content plan. So for our keyword, dance studio in Manhattan, the tool has suggested 28 other keywords.

Another important feature that can come handy is content ideas that will show you the current content pieces that are ranking for your keywords. You can use this to ideate content while preparing your marketing plan.

Why is this important? Keyword Research will help you identify the whole collection of keywords you should focus on. I recommend doing this exercise every month or quarterly so that you can keep adding new keywords consistently. The right keywords used in the right way in your content helps them rank in search results. It will also help your audience to find your content whenever they are looking for solutions.

Competitor Analysis

The third step that I will recommend in the pre-work stage is competitor analysis. Your competition can be the best source of learning for you and your business sometimes. You can analyze your competition’s content to understand what is and what is not working for them. When you perform this analysis, make sure you cover their website, blog, social media channels, and even forums they are active.

Why is this important? Competitors can save you so much time when it comes to content marketing. They can point you in the right direction on the type of content your audience prefers, and the channels they consume it on. It is crucial to note your competition’s activity on forums like Yelp, Google My Business, and Foursquare, etc.

Identification of Formats

The fourth step in the SMB content marketing workflow is the identification of formats for your content. This is a critical step and a difficult one due to the sheer volume of content formats available for you today. Today our target audience may prefer anything from a blog post to a live stream video. So identifying the right content format is a critical step that can determine the success of your content marketing program.

How do you accomplish this? You can select the content formats based on your buyer persona exercise findings, or your competition’s successes, or even by asking your audience about their preferences. You need to ensure that the formats you select are the kinds you can pull it off without much struggle. A well shot and scripted video might be a preferred item, but it might cost you a bomb to get one done. So you need to select the formats based on your audience preferences and your strengths and weaknesses.

Selection of Tools

The final step in the pre-work stage is the selection of the right tools for your content preparation, propagation, and analytics. As an SMB owner, you are fortunate that there a gazillion tools available today at your disposal for your content marketing efforts. Depending on your content needs, you can pick and choose the right ones.

There are tools for preparing content like web content, blog posts, graphical content, video content, and live streams. There are tools available for hosting your content and propagating them. You have tools that can help you measure the performance of your content as well.

Some of the best tools you may want to check out:

Wix, Squarespace – Easy to use website builders

Canva, Crello – Easy to use graphic design tools

The Work

The work stage of this content marketing workflow is where you shift gears and start producing content. So now you are well versed with your audience and their preferences, your keyword plan is ready, and you also have chosen the right tools to do the work. Great – so let’s get started.

Content Calendar

The first thing you need to run the show effectively is a content calendar. You can search for a template for content calendars online and choose one which will suit your needs. A basic one that covers the schedule, type of content, focus keywords for each content piece, and target audience details will suffice. Your content calendar should give you clarity about the content plan on a weekly and monthly basis.

One of the best content calendar templates is available here.

Content Production

Ok, my SMB friends, this is where the rubber meets the road. We have worked hard so far to do everything up until our content calendar. Now comes the execution part. The best way to get this rolling is to stick to your schedule without fail. One of the best parts is that whichever tool you choose for the creation process, I am pretty sure it comes with a mobile app version too. So, install the app on the phone so that your content creation can happen on the move.

Leverage your colleagues who are creative with words or graphics or videos and make them part of your process. They can handle some of the responsibilities in your absence and make sure your process is working.

Post-Work

The post-work starts once you have kicked off your content creation efforts. There is no point in creating all the good content and not sharing it. Your should propagate your content as your life depends on it. Without sharing and spreading your content, there is no way your audience is going to consume it. There are also several hacks that you can leverage while sharing your content in the right avenues.

Another important step that falls here is the analytics which tells you the real story about your content’s performance. This will help you in multiple ways on your content marketing journey.

Content Propagation

By now, you will be aware of the hard work that goes into preparing the right content for your audience. The biggest blunder you can do here is not sharing your content enough. You need to make sure you are sharing your content at the right watering holes (thanks to buyer personas) so that your audience can consume the same. And do not be ashamed to share the same content multiple times, and this helps in increasing the longevity of your content.

How to propagate content the right way? You can utilize your social media channels to share your content. Also, start a practice of an email newsletter that can carry your latest content pieces. Make sure you are circulating the content across the channels repeatedly.

Some Hacks To Remember

• Make sure you are writing good copies to go with your content on social media.
• You should tag the relevant influencers, partners, and team members, etc. wherever applicable
• Make sure you are repurposing your content to boost the reach of the same
• Use link shortening services like bit.ly to measure link clicks.

Measuring Performance

We have reached the most critical step of the entire workflow here. Without the right measurement mechanisms in place, there is no way we can understand what is working for us. During your kick-off itself, you need to ensure that your analytics engine is plugged in. This can be your Google Analytics for website performance and your Social Media Tool Analytics for social media performance.

You need to stay on top of the performance of every content which you have worked hard to prepare. You need to measure the engagement, feedback received, and results. Some of the best metrics to look at are traffic driven, clicks, shares, comments, downloads, and likes.

Course Correction

Once you are through with your performance monitoring, the best result of that is the course correction. Course Correction means the new direction you can take based on the results you have achieved. For example, based on your initial analysis, you have found that videos have much better engagement than blog posts, this can help you double down on video content for next quarter.

Course correction and staying nimble with their content marketing efforts are always beneficial for SMB owners. Without the bureaucracy and hierarchical interventions, SMB owners can execute faster and test waters quickly.

Final Thoughts

I believe every SMB owner should embrace content marketing, especially during tough times like these. Content Marketing can help you differentiate your brand from the crowd and attract the audience with ease. I agree that it is an uphill mission, but once you have established your workflow, the magic starts to work. So get on with it and start creating magic.